The invention generally relates to distributed computer systems and/or networks of interconnected computer systems, and more particularly to a method and system of Web-site host consistency administration among inconsistent software-object libraries of remote distributed health-care providers.
Looked at differently, the problem addressed by the invention relates to person-to-machine interaction with data. By way of background, a Web-site host is entrusted to provide administration services over a client's data. The client—a very real person—receives access to the data in the form of requests transmitted to the host over the Internet. The invention deals with the consistent presentation of requested data on the client's machine. That way, the client (ie., the person) is less likely to mis-interpret the data if it is presented consistently the same time after time.
Preferably the invention is implemented over the Internet to take advantage of its far reach as an affordable communications medium to remote distributed machines. More preferably still is that the given communications transmitted between the Web-site host and its clients over the Internet use open or public domain protocols for doing so. These principally include to date for Web-page matter the languages or formats of HTML (hypertext markup language), SGML (standard generalized markup language), XML (extensible markup language), XSL (extensible style language), or CSS (cascading style sheets).
The present application claims relation to the above-referenced co-pending, commonly-owned and commonly-invented U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/726,946, filed Nov. 29, 2000, entitled “Process for Administrating over Changes to Server-Administrated Client Records in a Stateless Protocol.” The emphasis in that application is on administrating over the trustworthiness of the data. In contrast, the emphasis of the present application is on administrating over the trustworthiness in the presentation.
That is, in the present application the trustworthiness of the data is taken as a given. The problem is, however, even if the data is trustworthy, inconsistent presentation among different requests for the data can cause human error in interpretation of the data.
The matter of consistent presentation of data is critical in field of remote distributed healthcare providers because of the following factors. Medication decisions are based on the data. The data in such case may be the time of previous administration of medication to a patient. If this bit of information fails to land in the right place for it on the client's computer screen, the client might miss it. The client might also not search the screen for where the data is displayed, or not understand it if indeed seen since it's not inside its field. Hence the client might decide to administer the patient a next dose when it's too soon. That's one aspect of the problem.
At this stage, further background into the problem would provide a richer understanding of it. The clients of applicant's enterprise comprise a group of healthcare providers such as nurses (of several types), physicians, social workers, therapists (of several types), or dieticians. The profile of such persons in that group is that they are attending to patients or residents in locations other than big medical complexes like hospitals or the like. Example such “other” locations include home health care provided to a patient in his or her own home, long term care provided to residents of long-term care facilities (eg., nursing homes), or physician offices in rural areas or where otherwise remote from services of Information Technologists. These parties have sophisticated information processing needs. However, they may have no more access to a computer than a personal or laptop computer that can be hooked up to the Internet by a phone line. These parties sorely lack local personal service from a skilled Information Technician because IT's are in short supply about everywhere. These parties troubles will have to be solved on the server-side of operations.
As well understood by those skilled in the art, computers communicating over the World Wide Web (“Web”) do so by browser technology and in an environment described as a “stateless” or non-persistent protocol. “Intranet” generally refers to private networks that likewise implement browser technology. “Internet” generally includes the Web as well as sites operating not on browser-technology but perhaps maybe servers of mail or Internet chat and the like. At least in the case of the Web, the stateless protocol is denominated as Hypertext Transfer Protocol (“HTTP”).
One premise of the Web is that material on the Web may be formatted in open or “public domain” formats. Several have been named previously. Many if not most of these open formats are produced under the authority of W3C, which is short for World Wide Web Consortium, founded in 1994 as an international consortium of companies involved with the Internet and the Web. The organization's purpose is to develop open standards so that the Web evolves in a single direction rather than being splintered among competing factions. The W3C is the chief standards body for HTTP and HTML and so on.
On the Web, all information requests and responses presumptively conform to one of those standard protocols. Another premise of the Web is that communications vis-a-vis requests and responses are non-persistent. A request comprises a discrete communication which when completed over a given channel is broken. The response thereto originates as a wholly separate discrete communication which is likely to find its way to the requestor by a very different channel.
Additional aspects and objects of the invention will be apparent in connection with the discussion further below of preferred embodiments and examples.